California, Nevada and Florida led the nation in the number of mortgage loan fraud suspicious activity reports (MLF SARs) subjects per capita during the first quarter of this year, according to data from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
Of the 50 most populous metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) ranked by the number of MLF SAR subjects reported, the top nine were MSAs located in California, Nevada and Florida, with the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana area ranked first in the nation. FinCEN adds that financial institutions filed 17,651 MLF SARs in the first quarter of this year, down from 25,485 filed in the same quarter of 2011.
‘We must remain vigilant against criminals trying to take advantage of struggling homeowners and markets trying to recover,’ says FinCEN Director James H. Freis Jr. ‘SARs reported to FinCEN are a tremendous tool to flag new criminal techniques, trends and patterns, and to help identify and hold accountable those involved in organized and repeated criminal schemes.’